The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

I read the first 1/3, but lost interest. It has some wonderful lines and metaphors, but they are mixed with trite phrases, and obscure references. It just didn't hold me. You have to work hard to read this book and for me the good elements of the book did not outweigh the bad.

Holy shit, this book reminded me what the word 'epic' really means. I was drawn to it after having loved Zorba the Greek, but I was unprepared for its depth. I read part of it in Canada, part in Kephalonia (Greece), and did not pass the 3/4 mark (or thereabouts).

In the early parts it was, in a word, badass. Odysseus refused to be shackled by domestic life and yearned for the open sea. As he and his friends built their ship by day, and caroused by night, I felt the joy of working hard on a project of my dreams. The joy of community, also, as I long for the society of strong and fierce men who share my projects.

As they sailed the Mediterranean, raping, pillaging, burning, and conquering, I felt the joy of power. The morality of strength. show more Bloodlust. As they sailed the Nile, casting their fortune into the sea, I felt the burden of worldly possessions, and the noble struggle of poverty on the open road. As they joined the workers' revolt, I felt the oppression of the wealthy, and as they joined the barbarians, I felt disdain for decadence. I envied their empty bellies and burning minds as they crossed the desert, and felt proud as they raised their town high.

When Odysseus climbed the mountain to commune with the God within, I felt his thirst for enlightenment, and the combination of his compassion and his disdain for his fellow men. I stopped shortly after this - I couldn't stay engaged, which says to me that I simply wasn't ready, or in the right headspace. There is a long road ahead, and this book has given me a moral compass. For that, I am grateful. show less

Editing at some (temporal) distance, which is always a problem and which I shouldn't do. But here I am.

I love Homer and am always in some stage or other of trying to learn Ancient Greek so I can read The Iliad or The Odyssey in the original.

This, of course, is not Homer. It's Kazantzakis ... and translated Kazantzakis, at that. So perhaps it's unfair of me to criticize (even as little as I am able, again, at this time gap) the poetry ... what I remember of this very long, very VERY uneven work is that it felt like some kind of Nietzsche mashup / dumbdown, so perhaps something like Ayn Rand but with more creativity. I don't know. It's (predictably?) very pushy and annoying about its "dance [presumably like Zorba] on the lip of a show more volcano"/"the best sort of man [person, but here it's a man] to be is a really self-absorbed a-hole" kind of "philosophy" (so-called: I don't).

So no, I didn't like it very much. Way too serious and pleased with itself. show less

A poem full of the life-affirming philosophy of the Mediterranean.

at Ulysses does after he gets home.....